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Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey gestures while interacting with students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi on November 12, 2018.
Prakash Singh | AFP | fake images
Twitter launched Fleets, its competitor to the stories features available on Snapchat and Instagram, on Tuesday. It also announced that it will soon begin testing a new audio feature similar to that of the popular startup Clubhouse.
Fleets allows Twitter users to post photos, videos, tweet reactions, or plain text in full screen that disappears after 24 hours.
Twitter began testing Fleets in March in select markets such as Brazil, but begins rolling out globally for iOS and Android Twitter users on Tuesday. The feature will show up at the top of users’ apps, above their feed. The company said it hopes this feature will encourage more users to post content.
“People are more comfortable joining conversations on Twitter in this ephemeral format because what they are saying lives for only a moment rather than feeling like it is forever,” said Joshua Harris, Twitter design director.
On Tuesday, the company also announced Spaces, a feature that will allow users to join virtual rooms where they can participate in real-time audio conversations with others.
Spaces is reminiscent of Clubhouse, a startup that quickly gained popularity earlier this year with venture capitalists. Clubhouse allows its users to join rooms where they can participate in real-time audio conversations with others.
Twitter product leader Kayvon Beykpour said Spaces will allow Twitter users to have more thoughtful discussions and exchanges.
“It’s not a ‘Here’s an interesting startup doing something interesting. Let’s try to replicate it,'” Beykpour said. “It’s very critical to us. If we want Twitter to be a place where we can have serious conversations, we need to support a broad spectrum of those conversations.”
Spaces will be rolled out to select trial users before the end of 2020. At the beginning of that trial, Spaces will only be available to users who are female or from underserved backgrounds, the company said. Those are users who face a disproportionate amount of harassment on Twitter, said Maya Gold Patterson, a product designer for the Twitter staff.
“The team is interested, and the company is interested in hearing feedback from this group of people first,” said Patterson.
